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A MAZE 2013 Roundup

I’ve restored balance to my sleep cycle, defeated the plane air disease cocktail, and gathered my thoughts. It’s time to write about A MAZE 2013.

A MAZE is an annual digital games, media and art festival that takes place in a number of different countries. This is the second year the festival has been set up in South Africa, and it was held at various locations around the heart of Johannesburg’s trendy art and student district.

The festival was full of all manner of talks, workshops and exhibitions, but the real joy came in spending time so many incredible game developers and other creative types. Apart from a much-needed meeting of the Jo’burg and Cape Town groups of developers, we were lucky enough to hang out a group of wildly entertaining international devs such as Rami of Vlambeer and the mad Sos Sosowski. There were also some wonderful devs from the rest of Africa, and while I’m sorry I didn’t get to chat to them much, the talks and games they presented were simply fantastic.

Silhouette was demoed at A MAZE too, which drew some decent crowds and garnered a positive reaction. It was quite surreal seeing people actually playing and having fun, and be able to get some good feedback on the game.

Kids having fun! But also why Silhouette probably needs an age restriction…

There’s something really special about being able to take the best social elements of a day or night out, and combine them with fun games. Over the weekeend, I had a great introduction to Joust and a bunch of other fantastic physical games that really make you feel like a kid again.

I originally went up to A MAZE with the intention to demo Silhouette, and I wasn’t really sure what to expect beyond that. What I discovered was an endless amount of fun and revelry that felt more justified, because I got to learn from and engage with a number of amazing people.

Er, “learning”, through early morning McDonalds take overs

Many thanks to all the organizers of the festival. It’s so exciting that South Africa gets to have a festival like A MAZE. It can only do excellent things for our indie game dev scene, and I’d encourage anyone even remotely interested to go next year.